Suggested by stories and films about an associate of the infamous Countess Bathory, the "Blood Countess."
Having followed Victor up into the attic, Eileen stood looking around silently for a few seconds, her attention focused on the specially-built low table. "Is this," she asked, her voice soft and even, "where you kill your victims?"
He looked only a little startled. "Yes," he muttered.
She touched the table, flecked dark brown pieces of dried material off of it. After glancing at him, she laid down on it, her head far back off the tilted headrest, her dark hair hanging, her soft brown eyes large and luminous. "Like this?" she inquired. "Are they lying like this when you kill them?"
He touched her cheek gently. "Not quite," he said. "I have them nude--I always have them nude--"
She rose, began stripping off her clothes. Her breasts were small and firm, her nipples already prominently erect; her legs were athletic but perfect, her waist narrow, her stomach flat. Naked, she laid back down; with one leg propped up and her hands lying beside her head, she gazed up at him peacefully.
"Yes," he whispered. "Just like that." He drew out a slim-bladed, ornately-handled knife and stood close beside her.
She didn't seem at all surprised or upset; she studied it calmly. "Is that what you kill them with?"
"Yes..." He leaned over her, touched her cheek again, brought the knife close to her face.
"It's very pretty," she murmured. She glanced up at his face. "How do you do use it? Do you cut their throats?"
"No... not at first..."
"How, then? Do you stab them first?"
"Yes... yes... I stab them, yes..."
"Where? Show me, where?"
Holding the dagger vertically, he moved it down and allowed the point to rest on her right breast, just below her nipple. Lying still, she watched it come and said nothing--though she trembled slightly when he finally touched her with it. "Right here," he told her, his voice thick. "Right here." He didn't move the knife.
She laid her hand lightly on his wrist; she did not try to push the knife away. "Victor," she said quietly, "I knew--all along. I knew who you were, I've known about what you were doing. I knew why you were bringing me up here."
"And yet you came," he said, his voice cracking. "And yet you came. Why?"
"I love you," she said simply, her eyes misting. "I wanted to be with you, as long as I could be. No matter how it ended, no matter what happened to me."
He sobbed violently, twice. "I love you too," he told her. Leaning over her, he kissed her passionately; she put her arms around his neck and returned it in kind.
And, as they kissed, he suddenly pierced her breast with the knife. At his first thrust, three inches of the blade sank into her; blood instantly welled up around it.
"AHH!" she screamed, breaking the kiss. "Ah, Victor, oh, oh, oh...!" Crying out again, she squirmed on the table, pulled her legs up, clutched at his neck, and stretched her head back; her mouth was open, her eyes closed. Victor, his lips still a mere inch from hers, forced the blade a little deeper.
Abruptly, she stopped screaming, stopped squirming; her legs quivered, then relaxed. "Oh, Victor," she moaned, "oh, Victor, I knew... but I love you, I couldn't deny you, if this was what you wanted, I wanted you to have it...!"
He sobbed violently. Moving his head forward, he kissed her again, and again, in spite of the knife that was piercing her, she kissed him back, just as passionately, smearing the blood that had risen up in her mouth on his lips. He slipped the blade on in even further, burying it to the hilt. She stiffened, but she didn't break the kiss this time.
"Ah, I love you," he murmured, pulling back a little, looking down at her. "I love you so much, so much... you're dying for me, you came here knowing what I'd do..."
Breathing hard, blood trickling from her lips, she gazed back at him. "Yes," she whispered back. "Yes, and I'd do it again, too, I would, it was worth it... oh, Victor... oh, it's hurting me, so bad... I'm dying, Victor, I'm dying..."
"I know it hurts, Eileen," he murmured. "But not for long, not for long..." Straightening up a little more, he wiped his fingers in her blood; in an almost straight line it flowed over her side and onto the slightly tilted table, and from there into the basin standing on the floor. Then, kissing her again--and receiving her kiss in return--he began drawing the blade out of her chest. Once more she went rigid, but, desperately, she kept kissing him. When the knife came free, a steady stream of blood poured from her chest. After watching it for a moment he pulled her head and shoulders up, clutching her body tightly against his. Leaning forward, she put her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder. He held her for a long moment; then he pressed the tip of his knife against her belly, close to her navel.
She felt it and she trembled, but she simply held him even more tightly. "Oh, Victor," she wept. "Oh, I..."
"I must," he whispered back. "Eileen, I must!"
"Do it, then," she murmured, pressing her cheek hard against his shoulder. A couple of wracking sobs shuddered through his body. As the last one passed, he pierced the soft smoothness of her belly.
"Uhh!" she moaned, matching his shudder with one of her own. Again her hands clutched at him. "Uhn, oh, Victor, Victor...!"
"Ah, my love," he sighed, slipping the knife gently and slowly on in. "Ah, my brave love!"
She looked up at him, her eyes blinking rapidly as the last inch of the blade sank softly into her abdomen. "Oh, Victor, I won't be here with you much longer..."
He kept the knife inside her for a long moment, then withdrew it; her body arched as it came free, as another thick stream of blood ran from her belly to join the other on the table. "I know you won't," he told her. "Ah, God, I'm going to miss you!" Yet again he kissed her. "I won't ever forget you, I'll always love you--oh, Eileen, ah, I'm so sorry it had to be this way!" Smothering her with kisses, he continued to hold her until her body began to relax.
He stood up; too weak from loss of blood to move or speak now, she followed him with her eyes while her body trembled slightly. "I must complete it now, my love," he told her as he wound her hair up around his fingers. "It must be completed." He laid the edge of the blade against her throat, and again he sobbed.
Then he made his first cut, hard and deep. Her eyes opened widely; blood spurted out, a tiny red fountain. He cut her again, keeping the blade in the same incision, carrying it much deeper; her arms and legs twitched spasmically. As he made the next cut, her eyes rolled back in her head. Methodically, he kept cutting; he did not stop until her head came free, until a river of blood was flowing from the stump of her neck. Holding her head up, he kissed her lips once more, then laid her severed head down alongside her body.